- You own a hand-operated clothes washer and a non-electric carpet sweeper.

- You have at least two of every size of Dutch oven (the ones with the legs on the bottom), and 20 bags of charcoal, although you have a gas grill.

- You have rain barrels at each corner of your house, although you have a city water hookup, and a Big Berkey to purify the water.

- You have sapphire lights, survival whistle, and a Swiss Army knife on every family member's keychain.

- The people in line at Costco's ask you if you run a store or restaraunt.

- You require a shovel to rotate all your preps properly.

- You no longer go the the doctor's because you can either fix it yourself, make it at home, or know and understand the physicians desk reference better than he does, and can get the goods at the vets or pet store for MUCH less moolah anyway.

- You know that a 'GPS' has nothing to do with the economy.

- You track your preps on a computer spreadsheet for easy reordering, but have hardcopies in a 3-ring binder 'just in case'.

- You've thought about where the hordes can be stopped before entering town.

- You start evaluating people according to 'skill sets'.

- You view the nearest conservation area as a potential grocery store if TSHTF.

- You know *all* the ways out the building where you work.

- You have enough pasta stockpiled in your basement to carbo-load all the runners in the New York marathon.

- You know that you have 36 gallons of extra drinking water in the hot water tank and your 2 toilet tanks.

- You know which bugs are edible.

- You have a handpump on your well.

- You have #10 cans of 'stuff' that the labels fell off of, but you won't throw it out or open it because it 'may be needed later', even though you haven't a clue as to the contents.

- You know where the best defensive positions and lines of fire are on your property.

- You've made a range card for your neighborhood.

- Your toenail clipper is a K-BAR.

- The Ranger Handbook is your favorite 'self help' book.

- You've numbered the deer romping in the yard by their order of consumption.

- You must move 50 cases of food for the plumber to get to that leaky pipe, but you have your own hand truck in the basement to do it.

- You own more pairs of hiking boots than casual and dress shoes combined.

- You have more 55gal blue water drums than family members.

- Your UPS system has more than 6 Deep cycle batteries.

- You have a backup generator for your backup generator, which is a backup for your solar system.

- You go to McDonalds and ask for one order of fries with 25 packs of ketchup and mustard.

- You have ever given SPAM as a serious gift.

- You've had your eye out for a good deal for a stainless steel handgun to conceal in the bottom of the magazine rack next to the toliet.

- You are single male over 40, but you still have an emergency childbirth kit, just in case you have to deal with that possibility.

- You have two water heaters installed in your basement, but one is a dummy that's been converted to hideaway safe.

- You've made bugout cargo packs for your dogs.

- You have a walking stick with all sorts of gadgets hidden inside.

- Your koi pond is stocked with catfish.

- As a stand-in scoutmaster, you taught your son's troop to set mantraps and punji pits, and haven't been asked to stand in since.

- You're on your fifth vaccum sealer, but you keep at least one of the worn out ones because you can still seal up plastic bags with it.

- You haven't bought dried fruit in years, but you buy fresh bananas, apples, peaches and pears by the case and have three dehydrators.

- Your UPS man hates you because of all the cases of ammo he's had to lug from his truck to your front door.

- You have duplicates of all your electronics gear, solar panels and generator parts in your EMP-shielded fallout shelter.

- You have set aside space for your live chickens in the fallout shelter.

- When the power goes out in your neighborhood, all the neighbor's kids come over to your place to watch TV on generator power.

- You must open the door to your pantry *very* carefully for fear of a canned goods avalanche.

- You have a 'Volcano', you know you can cook anything, and you cast evil glances at your neighbor's annoying, yappy poodle, muttering "your day will come, hotdog" under your breath.

- You've learned to knap flint, make twine from plant fibers for snares and use an atl-atl, because you fear that all of your preps and hard work will be confiscated by FEMA troops or destroyed by earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear blasts, ravening hordes of feral sheeple or reptiloids from 'Planet X' ATSHTF.

- You've jotting down some ideas from this post for actual use in your preparations.

I may be the first to go down, but while I'm here I'll enjoy myself and not get paranoid about what might be coming. I'll take whatever precautions that I consider reasonable, but to hell with worrying about things I can't control. Of course, to me, keeping my guns loaded is being reasonaby prepared.

Furthermore, my philosophy is "Don't put off till tomorrow what you can do today". No regrets about what I didn't get done because I gave it my best every day. Of course, my everyday motto is "If it's worth doing it's worth doing right". And finally, "It only takes only a little more to do it first class".